daveallan81

There may be more to the earlier musical analogy than you think. I've been in and around the club/pub cabaret scene for over 25 years in a multitude of guises from performer to roadie and there are undoubtedly parallels to speedway. The clubs were at their peak in the seventies to the extent that if you weren't in the queue at 7 o'clock there was a good chance you weren't getting a seat. In many towns across the country it was THE place to be of a weekend. When I entered the game in the mid-eighties things had taken a dip but you could still easily find work 3/4 nights a week, more if you were a true top liner. Many acts were full-time performers, no need for a day job, and they commanded wages that the ordinary working man could only dream about. As the eighties rolled over to the nineties it was plain to see that crowds were fading away. The clubs became more unfashionable with what we term the 'younger generation' as they saw the fare on offer as something for their mums and dads. The majority of promoters/convenors did little to address this. Crowds continued to dwindle and work for acts began to dry up. Where once you could easily make a living on your own doorstep, you were now having to travel much further afield to keep the diary full. The faces in the crowd got older and older, fewer and fewer and still it was bingo and a singer. Fast forward to today and you're lucky to have a gig a week in your diary. Thursday/Friday/Sunday nights are all but gone, and clubs and pubs have closed down in their thousands. You can blame the smoking ban, cheap supermarket booze, the recession, whatever takes your fancy but the bottom line is they failed to move with the times and many have now paid the ultimate price. There are those who survive, indeed prosper, and those are the places that adapted to demand, changed the bill, promoted to the younger crowd and tried at least to keep it fresh. But by and large you stand on the stage looking out a smattering of faces, most of them in their 50's and 60's, all waiting for their bingo card and yet another rendition from the Tony Orlando songbook. You can swap out 99% of the above and replace it with speedway - riders having to race across two, even three leagues to make any sort of living. Deserted stadiums populated only with those who have been traipsing along for years. Little effort (apparently) being made to modernise and refresh the entertainment on offer, and those that try do so in the fear that they will isolate their remaining crowd, such is the thinness of the line they are walking financially. The £10 notion is an honourable one but it is completely unworkable. Based on figures provided by the management at Glasgow they would have to double their average gate to break even. You'd have to be either wildly optimistic or clinically insane to believe that will happen. The sport has had myriad opportunities to build a solid base for it's future but chose not to do so for whatever reason and, like the club and pub circuit, has largely had it's day. Like the acts who once commanded £400 a night but now work for a third of that just to do what they love, riders have to realise, or be made to realise, that the money at UK level isn't there any more. Address that issue and you might, just might, save the sport in some form in this country. Over the years I've heard many convenors tell me their answer to dragging their social club out of the mire. The one that has always remained with me came from arguably one of the most successful clubs still operating in the West of Scotland - "Never pander to the minority". Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there. Perhaps not. Perhaps it's too late to make any difference.

Speedway World Cup 2013 Excel workbooks for Events 1 & 2 are now available. Teams are in draw order and riders can be added as and when confirmed. The full series workbook has also been updated with the draw and results from the two qualifying rounds. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qyguy0tkpiayk3s/6T6h5i9QP6?m

Just noticed your post - thanks for that

That's the second time in recent weeks you've made such an accusation so pray tell, who's copying what? And while you're at it, can you say why all your links take you to the website holding page rather than directly to the file itself? You wouldn't be artificially driving up your site hits now, would you? For your information, your hidden site statistics counter uses cookies of which, by law, users have to be made aware. You may wish to update your website with the appropriate notification. If anyone wants to copy my files, wire in. But why bother? It's a doddle knocking these things up, have a bash yourself. After all, it's just Etch-a-sketch for the 21st century...

According to http://scbgb.co.uk/pdf/rider_listings/Riders%2012.06.13%20-%20printable.pdf the oldest registered rider is Brian Cooper (DOB 12/01/1934). Kevin Keay (DOB 25/12/60) is still doing NJL. Anderson's DOB is 27/9/62.

I don't see it staged in either 1968 or 1969. Dave Jessup won the event on 3/6/70.

Spot on! They don't pay out in a 5-0 either.

Ahh thanks R&R - I don't think I came back to the thread after your answer I've watched all the matches this season but only noticed that no-one seemed to call yesterday. The token came up with a 1, so it must be 1 or 2 rather than heads/tails. And I finally worked out why my bonus points totals don't always tie in with the official scores as well. That info's probably posted elsewhere as well but don't ruin my sense of achievement

Can someone tell me, when they toss-up for gate positions, does either manager call heads/tails, or does the official just flip the coin? Some of todays fare was world class, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sportowefakty's regular updates normally have the heats listed one by one, it's just blank so who knows? The line-up on the news page of the official website also differs from the teams page with Zagar back at reserve (19). Whatever, it should be good and as the official site says: "For those who think how to spend saturday's night we aren't leaving any doubts: it's worth to go to Motoarena and watch exciting fights of the gladiators of „black sport”!" Canny argue with that

4 variations on a theme for anyone wanting a racecard for tonight: Excel workbook (for 2007 and newer) Printable grid-style card (version 1) Printable more traditional layout (version 2) Printable grid-style card with race formula stripped out (version 3) Version 3 is to cover the possichancity that the meeting doesn't run to the traditional pairs formula - speedwayupdates thinks it will, sportowefakty isn't so sure. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oj1egjc4tow01py/XkAn2aOuV0?m

Aye yer right enough - Batchelor no longer listed on website.

According to the official website, there's a couple of minor alterations to the line-up from earlier: Troy Batchelor is at reserve for Australia, and Matej Zagar rides at number 10 for the Czechoslovenians with Tomas Suchanek at reserve. U.S.A. appear to have no third rider/reserve at this time.

I've knocked up an Excel workbook if you have Excel 2007 or newer. The race formula should be the traditional 21 heat, 7 team one as laid down by the FIM (although it's not an FIM meeting). I've got 2 printable versions but they'll have to stand by until the draw and riders are confirmed. There's a blank 'grid-style' version of one online just now, the other will be in the more traditional style. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oj1egjc4tow01py/XkAn2aOuV0?m

Ashfield FC must abide by the following rule: “The club must have the sole use of the ground or “shared” use approved by the SJFA and be in a position to establish security of tenure for the ground and to play matches as and whenever required.” The playing season officially commences each year on the third Saturday in July, and terminates on the third Saturday in June the following year, a substantial overlap with the speedway season. Weeknight games are usually scheduled from the start of the season until second week in September, then re-commence around the second week of the following April. The only day of the week on which teams are not obliged to play is Sunday. There is no season-long fixture list issued for the football, and matches can be arranged at very short notice, particularly towards the end of the season. While I don't doubt that the fixtures secretary would make every effort to avoid the possibility, if Ashfield were awarded a fixture that clashed with a scheduled Tigers match, the football would have to take precedence. For that reason alone, regular Wednesday night racing at Ashfield would seem highly unlikely and while football arranged for Thursdays/Fridays is relatively rare, scheduled speedway matches could still fall prey to the same scenario.

That was the case throughout 2012 as well. It could be that their scorechart software/operator is unable to work out the correct order of the top eight if countbacks are required. Also Ales Dryml was shown in 18th place after 3 rides behind Cook and Auty although at that stage neither reserve had taken a ride.

Those of you with Excel 2007 and newer might like to investigate my SGP workbook. It's up to date with results from the first 4 rounds and tonights draw and miracle of miracles the damn thing seems to be working Workbook download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgrq0b3gj06ajta/SGP%202013%20Workbook.xlsx

Your excellent file is now available http://www.speedwayresearcher.org.uk/docs/specialfeatures/tommyjansson.pdf Superb stuff sir

Let's just nip that in the bud shall we? Desperately? As in I've got something to prove or say? My opinion is as worthless and reprehensible as anyone else's, it's just your bad luck that I've chosen to inflict my inane drivel on this forum on this day. Who cares what I think, I just felt like typing it out because I couldn't get a decent feed for Poland. Feel free to copy and paste that into your signature and then we can all get along. Correlation. Two random values. Value 1, the scoreline. Value 2, the attendance. The TR ride serves no other purpose than to close the scoreline, therefore it must be assumed the powers that be think yes. Positive correlation. Again, two random values. Value 1, the scoreline, Value 2, the feeling/perception of being entertained. Evidence says some say yes, some say no. This could also be seen as the reason for the TR existence in the belief that the below is perceived as true, but can just as easily be disregarded as we have already read. This time Value 1, the feeling/perception of being entertained, Value 2, the attendance. One would like to think so, but is there any true evidence that the greatest entertainment boosts your crowds in speedway? You can't do better than sending your crowd home happy. The only conclusions to be drawn here are the two are linked and we've been sending folk home scunnered to the back teeth, or it makes no odds to them. Otherwise crowds would be increasing. Therefore we must conclude that the powers believe that the TR rule facilitates either increased entertainment leading to higher attendances, or that the scoreline alone is enough to generate the numbers. As we have established, the TR rule has no other purpose. Crowds are falling, the TR must be regarded as a variable in those statistics. The rulemakers believe that generating closer scorelines points to higher attendances when the current evidence is to the contrary. I have no interest in it's rights and wrongs, purely whether it can be considered a player in the downfall of our sport. There can be no other sport that wallows so serenely in it's homemade mathematical soup of defeat. There, stick that on a badge...

I'm attempting to quantify the quality of entertainment on offer against the swathes of empty terraces which, in the entertainment industry which speedway purports to abide, tends to indicate your product is failing. If a match where "the scoreline belied the racing" (copyright everyone who's ever written about speedway ever) can co-exist in the same sport with one where "the closeness of the scoreline kept things interesting" (copyright as above) then there can be no correlation. Happiness was indeed touted as 40-38. But was it championing the closeness of the score and the thrill of the last heat decider, or simply boldly proclaiming your team won? Was it still happiness if you had watched ten lousy heats of a pointless challenge match in the pouring rain in October that tied the match up before you shipped three 5-1's that saw your heat leader trio wiped out for the season in pile-ups? Yeh, show me that badge... Or as I suspect does it conjour up dreams of perfect tracks in perfect stadiums on perfect nights serving up perfect speedway with perfect riders passing perfectly in every heat, the climax of which is a nerve-shredding final heat where they pass and re-pass over and over in a sixty-odd second maelstrom of shale and leather and steel before they flash past the chequered flag and you collapse, spent, to your knees holding your by now half-eaten programme board aloft and in that one second, that tiniest moment in time, you know that you are ALIVE! Both finished 40-38 but I know what one they're going to cover in Backtrack.

There is no correlation between closeness of scoreline and quality of entertainment. Nor does any exist between the myriad 'equalisation' methods the sport employs and closeness of scoreline. The purpose of the TR must be to facilitate this parity otherwise it has no meaning. If the scoreline alone generates enough buzz to satisfy your cravings then I put it to you that you are in the minority. The empty terraces testify to that. No-one ever said "Oh Blahtown Lizards have had 4 really close scores, let's go next time." Talk of 'playing a joker' and 'double points' is a shocking piece of promotion by a sport that is supposed to be about risking life and limb. This isn't a seventies game show. No brakes. No gears. No fear. Wear the special hat, get double points. I submit that the number of people the game show rules keep away from the sport, far outstrips the numbers attracted by the manipulation of scorelines.

Possibly an athletics track? I thought the stadium was built on top of the ground shown in the pic rather than incorporated into it. Here's the one that started me off on this site, both Glasgow Blantyre tracks - the greyhound stadium is tagged, Craighead park is practically touching it. http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/saw033079?search=blantyre&ref=6

If you are seller 1963lpg on Ebay can you contact me ASAP please? Thanks.

F.I.M. website advertising live stream of Abensberg http://www.fim-live.com/en/

It's a hell of a way to preface a jolly announcement.